If the fact heretofore adverted to left any doubt of the assumption of legislative power by the Assembly in the shape of votes, I apprehend that these Resolutions will remove that doubt from the minds of the most incredulous.

In one respect, the framer of these Resolutions was wise; he has not put his name to them, but leaves them as a report of the House in Committee, generally, without taking to himself the responsibility of a measure in its principle subversive of the Constitution and of all law. The history of the old British Colonies, agitated as they were, contained, so long as they acknowledged their Colonial dependence, no act like this. We find a parallel to it—and where shall we find it? we must go back to the Long Parliament, and we all know what the course there pursued ended in. Let it be observed, too, that these Resolutions were passed without a division; and purport to be, therefore, the unanimous sentiment of the House. Was it then, one naturally asks, the intention of that body to divest the Crown of its just rights?-I should be wanting in justice. if I did not say, that no such intention did exist in a very large majority of the House. It is not the less true, however, that such is the direct consequence of their act.-Whence, then, may it be asked, did it proceed? The answer is plain -from an overweening confidence in a few individuals, who, neither from their knowledge or their discretion, are entitled to it.

If I am correct in the view which I take of this vote, there remains a problem of much more difficult solution,-How came it that the Nobleman who is at the head of this Go

Resolved,-That in the event of the Bill sent up by this House to the Legislative Council, on the 5th instant, not receiving the concurrence of that House in the present Session, the Honourable Denis B. Viger, Esquire, Member of the Legislative Council, named Agent of the Province in the said Bill, be requested to proceed to England without delay, for the purposes mentioned in the foregoing Resolution. Resolved, That it is expedient that the necessary and unavoidable disbursements of the said Denis Benjamin Viger, for effecting the purposes aforesaid, not exceeding £1000, be advanced, and paid to him by the Clerk of this House, out of the contingent fund thereof, till such time as the said disbursements can be otherwise provided for.

vernment, and who is especially charged with the maintenance of the King's power and dignity, should have felt himself called upon to express his admiration at the conduct of a body who had committed this aggression upon both. I leave it to those to whom are divulged the arcana imperii, to explain this difficulty.

There remains one other branch of the general subject at the head of this paper, upon which it is very desirable that information should be had; but which, from the want of that information, it is not in my power to enlarge upon.

The annual expenditures of the two Houses of the Provincial Legislature are very considerable. The public opinion can exercise no controul over them, from the circumstance of the accounts not being published. Of late years, the expenditures have been considerably augmented by allowances to witnesses on Petitions of Grievances. In one instance, as much as £120 was allowed to one witness; and the costs so incurred during the Session of, I think, 1828-9, upon a single Petition of Grievances, amounted to between £600 and £700. Some witnesses one sees as regularly about a fortnight after the opening of the Session, as swallows in the spring; and although they do not last quite so long, yet they hardly leave Quebec before either the House or the roads break up. This is a great evil, and the public ought to be enabled to judge of its extent by having not only this, but all the other items of expenditure of the one and the other House, rendered public by means of the press. It is altogether ridiculous that bodies, whose duty it is to check all other public expenses, should be left uncontrolled by public opinion in their own.

I have now to enquire, by what steps, on other matters, the House was gradually led, during the last Session, to the climax of the foregoing Resolutions of the 15th February, 1831. This is partly explained by facts already referred to.-I shall try to continue the explanation in my next numbers.

NO. VI.

ON THE FIRST REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF GRIEVANCES.

Quibus in controversiis cum sæpe a mendacio contra verum homines stare consuescerent, dicendi assiduitas aluit audaciam, ut necessario superiores illi propter injurias civium resistere audacibus, et opitulari suis quisque necessariis cogeren. tur. Itaque cum in dicendo sæpe par, nonnunquam etiam superior visus esset is, qui, omisso studio sapientiæ, nihil'sibi præter eloquentiam comparasset, fiebat, ut et multitudinis, et suo judicio, dignus, qui rempublicam gereret, videretur. Hine nimirum non injuria, cum ad gubernacula reipublicæ, temerarii, atque audaces homines accesserant, maxima ac miserrima naufragia fiebant. CIC. DE INV.

I AM far from judging so harshly of the political character of lawyers as the great master of Roman eloquence. In the governments of law of modern days, those men who make of the law their peculiar study, must and ought to have great influence in the public deliberations of their country. But the study of the law is proverbially of great extent, difficulty and complexity, even when that science is applied to the controversies of private individuals. Its difficulty and importance grow proportionably when we use it as a standard of public rights, and seek therein those great conservative principles of social order whereby the political fabric is kept together and maintained. The knowledge of these, and a just application of them, require more study than youth can have afforded, and an experience which age only can confer.

It is not the least of the evils arising from the novel and unprecedented mode in which the committees generally of the Assembly were nominated in the last session, that, in consequence of it, the senior members of the profession belonging

to the House were, with one solitary exception, excluded from the Committee of Grievances-a committee where their services, knowledge, and discretion were so much called for— and their places supplied by young gentlemen who had at a comparatively very recent period entered into the profession; and who, whatever might be their individual merits, had not yet gone through the ordeal of a long practice. The Chairman of the Committee himself had but very shortly before come out of an Advocate's office, and had not yet had time to make himself known in the courts. Under such auspices, it required no peculiar sagacity to anticipate that the proceedings of the committee would be distinguished rather for youthful violence than for sober judgment; and when these anticipations came to be realized, one could not but feel that if the vouth of these parties might be considered as an alleviation of their errors, it constituted no apology for the honourable member who, uncalled, had volunteered to guide the choice of the House in the selection of the members of all the standing committees.

An examination of the first report is calculated to afford a salutary lesson of care and deliberation to the youthful members of the committee, and an useful warning to them against passion and precipitation, whilst it may at the same time serve to show to the House itself the great dangers incident to the neglect of their own rules, and to the delegation to one or to a few individuals of powers which those rules reserved to the House itself.

The first report of the Committee of Grievances relates exclusively, to the notice from the Provincial Secretary's Office of the 15th day of December, 1830, whereby "Persons in this Province holding commissions during pleasure under his Majesty's Provincial Government, which, at the time of the demise of his late Majesty George the Fourth, were in force, and will continue to be so under the statute in this behalf provided, till the 26th instant, are notified, that their new commissions, rendered necessary thenceforward by his late

Majesty's demise, will be delivered to them on application at this office," and to the proceedings of the public authorities in relation thereto.

Before entering into the considerations of public law applicable to the case, it will be well to put our readers into possession of the whole of the proceedings of the Assembly, and at the Castle, down to the making of the report. On the 28th day of January, 1831, Isidore Bedard, Esquire, one of the members of the Assembly, presented a petition to the House on the behalf of Edward Glackmeyer, Esquire, a Notary Public, and one of the copying Clerks of the House, complaining of his being required to sue out a new commission as a Notary Public.*

In consequence of a message from the House relating to the subject of the new commissions, his Excellency was pleased to send down to the House the following message, bearing date the 9th February, 1831 :

"In compliance with the request of the House of Assembly expressed in their address of yesterday, the Governor in Chief transmits herewith a certified copy of his Majesty's proclamation, bearing date at St. James's, the 27th day of June last; and being desirous of making the House of Assembly acquainted with the whole of the circumstances connected with the recent renewal of commissions held under his Majesty's Government in this Province during pleasure, he informs the House, that about the middle of the month of December last, it was suggested to him, (not officially, or by any one connected with this Colony) that it behoved him to consider whether a renewal of such commissions might not become necessary by the non-arrival of renewed commissions from England, previous to the expiration of six months, dating from the demise of his late Majesty. In consequence of this suggestion, the Governor in Chief directed the Executive Council to assemble; when it was resolved, (his Excellency being present) to refer the question to the judges and law of

*The Committee has omitted to publish this petition in the appendix to their report, and also to state what the prayer of it was in the body of the report; so that I am only enabled to give a general description of itwhich, upon the motion of Mr. Bedard, was referred to the Committee of Grievances, of which he then was, or soon after became the chairman,